Burglary Update…Are You Serial?

Most unfortunately our house was burglarized last November. It was seriously a complete and total nightmare, financially and emotionally. I wrote a post about some valuable lessons we learned when it happened, click here to see the post. Hopefully some of the things we learned can help prevent it from happening to someone else!

If you take one thing away from reading this, it would be to lock every door and window every time you leave your house. You never think it would happen to you or happen in your neighborhood, but it does and it can. I will never take my safety or security for granted again. I used to feel very safe in our neighborhood, but now we never step out without everything locked, bolted, and our alarm system on. Even if we are going for a walk around the block for 15 minutes.

BUT, I do have some good news and an update that I wanted to share!

Last December I got a call from the detective on our case from a pawn shop saying they had recovered our video camera! The person (I have other choice words to call him, however, I will abstain) that robbed our house didn’t even take out the tape in the camera! I was so grateful, because on that tape was footage of the moment we told my parents that I was pregnant. I was devastated about losing this and the recent video of Emma.

The way it was recovered was through the SERIAL NUMBER. My husband had kept the serial number for the camera, which we provided to the police when they did the report. When the guy pawned our camera, the pawn shop entered the serial number in a database of stolen property, and it came up as a hit and the police were notified.

Even better, the guy had to give a photo ID and fingerprint when he pawned it (the same afternoon that our house was robbed.) So, not only did we get our camera back – but now they had a suspect.

I am so happy to share that we just got notice that after 9 long months, the suspect was arrested! The fact that this person was on the street and possibly burglarizing other houses all this time has been so hard. I would never want another family to go through this. The feeling of violation is haunting, I really think about it every single day.

Moral of the story: This guy would not have been located or caught if it was not for us having a record of that serial number. So, today, do yourself a favor, and make a master list of all the serial numbers on your electronics…computers, laptops, cameras, video cameras, etc. Even things like iPods have them. You will often find them under the battery, but they will be located somewhere on the device. Keep the list in a safe place and make a copy to give to someone else as well.

I hope this person will pay for what he did to us. None of our other items were recovered, but when it happened I said the only thing that mattered to me was that video (which we got back) and that somehow the person would get caught and pay for it. What goes around comes around – karma is a bitch! 🙂

Pass this blog on to all your friends and family! Hopefully it might prevent it from happening to you or someone you love.

I’m sorry you had to go through this, and that’s fantastic you were able to recover your camera/video. What a great tip, and how wonderful your husband had the foresite to write that down or "register" the serial number. We’ve done that on a couple of things, but not all things. What a great system for the pawn shop. did you thank them? And, poor pawn shop are they now out that $$$ or do they have a way to recover the amount they paid the jerk? Either way, go give that pawn shop a compliment on http://www.ecompliments.comIt’s a wonderful site to compliment businesses, churches, individuals, items/products. You name it! If they are in the phone book, they should have a profile. If not, you can add ’em! and well they deserve a compliment in this case, right?

Sandi

August 12, 2009

5

Jen says:

I will totally compliment that pawn shop! What a great tip!

I had to pay $30 to get my video camera back, I guess that is what the thief got for it. So, the pawn shop is not out the money. Sort of ironic that we had to pay to get our stolen camera back, but it was well worth it!!!!

August 12, 2009

6

Jenny H says:

What a happy ending to the story, can’t believe you even got the tape back! Unbelievable. And we will start a serial numbers list, pronto!